Long time, no post, am I right?
Sorry, I was finishing up my junior year of college. It was crazy, but here I am again, and I have things to say. Since Christmas break, I've been on a reading spree. I received and bought a LOT of books, and I needed to read them, so I did, and it was amazing! That's not the point. The point is that I branched out and read several young adult (YA) novels. If you're not as heavily saturated with the publishing industry as I am, YA has a fairly bad reputation of having a lot of inappropriate content for its audience. The YA age range is thirteen to seventeen, and a good amount of books targeted to that demographic have strong language, sex scenes, etc. present in them. That's coming from the secular side. On the Christian side, books labeled "YA" are considered cringe-worthy and preachy. There's seems to be no happy medium on either side. That being said, I've found some great YA novels that not only have a good story line, but are also pretty clean. In the Hall, With the Knife (Diana Peterfreund): In case the title doesn't give it away, this book is based off the board game and movie Clue. When I found this, I had to get it. I'm a sucker for murder and Clue. Peterfreund did not disappoint. The characters are all suspicious and they constantly leave you pointing the finger around the circle until the end. I had no clue who the murderer could have been until they were revealed. Plus, no sex scenes and there may have been five cuss words max. (And there's a sequel!) Catwoman: Soulstealer (Sarah J. Maas): When I picked up this book, I was automatically excited. I love Catwoman and anything remotely related to Batman, so this was a must-read. I was hesitant, too, because I'd heard that some of Maas's other books had sex scenes in them, but my friend who'd read it before reassured me this one didn't have any. Catwoman is an incredible book. Lots of action, deception, and several references to the other characters in the Batman-sphere, which I appreciated. There was a little more cussing than I would've liked, but it wasn't excessive, which isn't a bad trade-off in my opinion. Black Canary: Breaking Silence (Alexandra Monir): This is the fifth installment of the DC Icons series, and it's amazing! Black Canary's story has always intrigued me, and the story Monir wrote for her was fantastic. There were a few parts I found cheesy, but overall, it's a great read. Like the others, there are a few cuss words sprinkled throughout, but it's otherwise clean. Teen Titans: Raven and Teen Titans: Beast Boy (Kami Garcia and Gabriel Picolo): I don't know if you've noticed, but I love superheroes. Now, Raven and Beast Boy are graphic novels, but they're still targeted to a YA audience. I've been looking at these books for a long time. Raven is my favorite Teen Titan, and when I saw that the third graphic novel in the series is Raven and Beast Boy as a couple, I knew I had to read these two. I read them both within hours of getting them. The story, artwork--everything was amazing! They embodied both characters very well, and I was very happy about that. Plus, they're clean aside from a couple cuss words. YA fiction has a bad rep, but that doesn't mean all the books that are marked "YA" are bad. I encourage you to give these books a read, because they were all great, or take a chance on a YA novel that you might be looking at reading. If you read one of the books above or have read one of them, leave a comment below because I want to continue fangirling over them. :) Until next time, happy reading!
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It's safe to say I haven't been very active on my website as of late. One of the main reasons for that has been because I'm working on the fifth draft of one of my manuscripts. But, as the title of this post says, another big thing that's been taking up my time is reading! And I've read some great books so far this year.
One series (yes, I read the entire series in a month) that I've read is the Tales of the Haunted Mansion series. The books are based off the ride in Disney World, and each book follows the deaths of some of the residence that reside in the mansion, and even give insight to some of the grave markers you see while waiting in line to ride the ride. I'm a huge Disney fan, and an even bigger Haunted Mansion fan, so finding these books while looking for Christmas ideas for my parents was a huge surprise and an instant must-have. I could go on and on about the shear amount of detail put into each volume of the series, or the mysterious mansion librarian, Amicus Arcane, who's presence in each of the four books is just as important as the over arching plot that comes to light in the fourth book, but I think it would be more fun for you to experience it for yourself. Seriously, for middle-grade novels, they're creepy and made me ask "Are you sure this suited for young audiences?" Of course, it's a book about the Haunted Mansion, so toeing the line makes sense. And I'm a wuss, too, so take my opinion for what it's worth. I highly recommend Tales of the Haunted Mansion to anyone who loves Disney and a good scare. I'm telling you, this series is by far one of my favorites. These books got me excited to read again, too, so you can imagine how dear they are to me. If you decide to read this series, leave a comment down below and tell me what you think! See you next time! |
L.P. MetzgerJust a girl with a dream, but you already knew that. Archives
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